17th century items

We read stuff

Des mots, toujours des mots

Like English, French has its word-hounds, its mavens, its amateurs vraiment amants. At Le Monde, which is roughly the New York Times of France, two copy-editors divert themselves with Langue sauce piquante. Martine Rousseau & Olivier Houdart comment on matters typo-, ortho-, lexico-, and sometimes autobiographical. One sees in the comments that questions of language boil the blood no less reliably in French as in English.

Alain Horvilleur, the author, has published an almanac of words from Le Garde-mots (Jacques André, 2009, 978-2-7570-0088-5).

The specimens at Le Garde-mots are more exotic: panspermie, calotype, gaudepisse (with five synonyms). Learn words like this and they won’t laugh at you next time you hang out at the Luxembourg. Not to your face, anyway.

As long as I’m dealing in words, I may as well mention Wordie, a “social lexicon” where you can create word lists, comment on words, and find images associated with them (this function is iffy).

You’re a reader. At this very moment. (But maybe not now.) Habitual readers tend to like to read about reading and readers. If so, you’ll like Lali. Lali deals mostly in representations of readers reading—paintings, for the most part, but also photographs and sculptures. The text is in French, the images are of no language. Series include: “Anecdotes du libraire” and “À livres ouverts”.